The Rann of Kutch, an area of 18,000 sq km, lies almost entirely within
Gujarat along the border with Pakistan. The Little Rann of Kutch extends
northeast from the Gulf of Kutch over 5,100 sq km. Once an extension of the
Arabian Sea, the Rann ("salt marsh") has been closed off by centuries of
silting. During Alexander's time it was a navigable lake, but is now an
extensive mudflat, inundated during the monsoons, salty and cracked
otherwise. Settlement is limited to low, isolated hills. [Adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica]

When I visited the Rann in April, 2006, the highs were
already soaring past 110 F. The best way to see it, as I did, is in a 4WD
stocked with lots of water. Dotting the parched landscape are desolate
desert-like encampments, where a family or two combine forces to eke out a
living by mining salt from the saline ground water, the biggest local
industry. Legend has it that even after a salt worker dies and is cremated,
the soles of his feet survive - a lifetime of labor in the salt pans bakes
them so hard that even fire cannot fully burn them.*
Tata lorries transport their salt to small trading villages along a railway
line. In the dry season, such villages host veritable hillocks of salt as
far as the eye can see, where it's packed and sent out on trains.

Kutch is also home to numerous
tribal
groups, whose
attire often adds a dash of color to the otherwise
dull desert monotones. Many, such as
the Rabari, are still nomadic and semi-nomadic
pastoralists (these photos only show women, children, and
older men with the camels; the younger men were out
tending their sheep and would converge in the evening at a
designated place, where the women would setup the tents
and cook).

In the monsoons, parts of the Rann fill up with seasonal brackish water and
some locals harvest shrimp in it. They abandon their boats afterwards in the
barren salty mudflats, creating a rather surreal scene for the
spring/summer-time visitor. Heat mirages abound, making distant objects
hover strangely above the land. The Little Rann is also a wildlife sanctuary
that protects the Asiatic wild ass, a shy and handsome animal that can
sprint at 70 km/h. Down to about 2,800 in number, they depend on the few
grassy islands, or bets, nourished by monsoon rains. The sanctuary also
contains a large number of local and migratory birds, especially flamingos,
at its many wetlands. A memorable experience was to go wading knee-deep
into the warm waters of a salt marsh with thousands of flamingos around.